The automatic rain-gauge of Sir Christopher Wren, F. R. S

Abstract

SAMUEL JOHNSON once said ‘when two Englishmen meet their first talk is of the weather. They are in haste to tell each other what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm’. More than two hundred years have elapsed, but, not surprisingly, the preoccupation of the English with the weather has still persisted. The interest in meteorological phenomena, however, could be traced to the old Babylonian culture (3000-1000 B.C.) when the priests were interested in Astro-Meteorology which became an integral part of the Assyric-Babylonian religion. The astrological cuneiform library of Assurbanipal (at present in the British Museum) indicates that the Chaldeans (race name of the Babylonians) made observations of clouds, winds, storms and thunder.